And wondering which you'd say is a better deal. I feel like I don't need anything crazy fast, an SSD alone is going to feel like huge upgrade. So size:money is my main consideration. However if one is way more quiet/efficient etc. those sort of things I'd factor in as well.

I dunno how to judge these things.

The 1TB one is very tempting just to have most of my stuff on it w/out worrying about space

From the ones you linked I would go with the Intel. $200 for 500GB of quality SSD is damn good value. Typically $0.50/GB is outstanding.. you're getting Intel for less than that which is awesome. I'd order that tonight if I were you.